Eight teams from industry, universities and NASA centers
have been selected to develop new technology concepts, such as
advanced solar power and optical communications, for future NASA
missions.

NASA plans to select up to five of the concepts for Space
Technology 6 (ST6), the next New Millennium Program project,
which will flight-test the new technology concepts in 2003 and
2004. The teams, selected by NASA's New Millennium Program, will
study the options during a six-month phase for defining the
technology concepts.

"The program taps into the nation's best industrial and
academic technology resources," said Dr. Fuk Li, program manager
of the New Millennium Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, Calif. "The program's objective is to validate
technologies that are required for future science missions in
space, not in a laboratory on Earth. ST6 also is the first time
we are validating technology items as stand-alone subsystems.
This set of technologies will bring broad benefits to NASA," said
Li.

Each of the eight teams' selected technologies fall into
specific space technology capability areas deemed important by
NASA for its future space science missions. The technologies and
teams are:

Between February and August 2001, the eight teams will
independently demonstrate how their proposed technologies will be
ready for flight validation. Each will also be responsible for
delivering a study report that will include technology-validation
experiment descriptions, rationale for flight validation, data,
and partnering relationships. Then an independent review board
at NASA will evaluate the reports and select the technology
concepts that will fly in ST6.

The New Millennium Program was created in 1994 to identify,
develop and flight-validate advanced technologies that can lower
costs and enable critical performance of science missions in the
21st century. The program is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of
Earth Science and Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL
is a division of the California Institute of Technology.